


Fish Out Of Water

by lovewillcomeandfindme



Series: a merman, not maid. [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Dragon Zuko (Avatar), Eventual Romance, M/M, Work In Progress, merman sokka
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:28:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25998265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovewillcomeandfindme/pseuds/lovewillcomeandfindme
Summary: The surface was new to Sokka. It was new, hot, and dry, but at least there was a friendly dragon nearby willing to help him out.
Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: a merman, not maid. [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1887004
Comments: 6
Kudos: 174





	Fish Out Of Water

**Author's Note:**

> idk if im gonna d=finish this lmao. tbh this was gonna be smut but them i started world building, but i really like it! i hope you do too!

The sand was coarse under his skin, and wildly unfamiliar against his smooth scales. 

The sun was beating against Sokka’s skin, and he brought a webbed hand up to push his hair away from his face. It was rough, so different from the silky texture he was used to it being while underwater. It clung to his skin, and he felt it dripping down his back, cold in comparison to the blazing heat of the air around him. 

The surface was different than he expected. He knew it would be dry, but he really didn’t have a clue as to what ‘dry’ was before now. He had been surrounded by the cool comforting water his entire life, and now that he wasn’t… It was borderline uncomfortable as he felt sand cling to the drying skin of his abdomen. 

His tail was still in the water, and for the moment he was comfortable to be sitting and watching the push and pull of the waves around the long muscle of his tail. Dark grey scales were glittering in the light, the sun shining off of them so that he could easily see the same blue that he knew his mother’s tail had been. His fins were still covered in the water, but just barely enough so that when his hands grazed the top of the water he felt the pointed edges of his body. 

The land was different than he had expected it to be. His father had described it as dangerous, and perilous but this looked as though it was the epitome of peace, the cliffs overlooking the sea the only blip on the beautiful horizon. This wasn’t the worst way he could be spending him time, he figured. Everyone had told him to be wary of the surface, but Sokka didn’t see any reason. It was beautiful, and maybe this was what he was meant to do. 

Peace times were better for exploration after all. 

It took a bit more effort than he would like to admit to pull himself out of the water in his entirety. A powerful, thick tail was perfect for when he needed to propel himself through the water to escape his sister, but it was heavier than he could have imagined when he was taking it out of the water. Everything was heavier than he had thought it would be, even raising his arms took more work than it usually would. 

It was strange, but he knew things would get easier once he had dried off. 

An uncomfortable process, sure, but he knew it. His father had taken the time to sit his son down and explain just how it would go once he reached the surface for the first time. He would need to get himself completely out of the water, which was admittedly a bit nerve wracking. He had never been completely out of the sea before. Once he was dry things would begin to change, apparently. 

It sounded ridiculous. 

It was ridiculous, but Sokka trusted his father- Even if he claimed that he would grow legs. 

It sounded completely fake, but it was one of their tribes oldest secrets. It had kept them safe for years, and he was thankful for it everyday. 

When pirates had discovered them, it had allowed most of their people to return home. Of course… Not all of them. 

His mother hadn’t returned, but his sister had.

Now it was Sokka’s turn to go and see the world, just as his father and all his peers had gone. It was supposedly to help them see what threats there were to the tribe, but… Sokka was just excited to see more. All his life, he had wanted to be just like his father, be a strong warrior and defend his home but recently, things had started to feel different.

He was alone for the most part, so you would think that it wouldn’t bother him as much as it did, but when his father returned from the war, when he was turning sixteen… It was harder to ignore the growing loneliness. 

He was the oldest boy in their village, which he’d always known and accepted, but it was proven difficult when he and his sister were the only two anywhere near in age. The others were so much younger than them that they didn’t have anyone but each other, until his sister had been captured and nearly stolen from the sea.

She was strong, and had gotten home, but she had brought someone with her in the end, and then… Sokka was alone. 

Katara had Aang, a human she had managed to give the gift of the sea to, his father had his life long companion, Bato, and he… was alone. 

No mate, no friends… He didn’t have anything to his name, nothing to call his own. 

So it was easy for him to accept the honor of going to the surface, to see the world beyond his little home. Maybe if he was lucky, he could find someone…

A companion.

The thought alone warmed him more than the sun ever could.

He imagined someone small and sweet, who would trace the freckles on his nese, and kiss the scars on his jawbone that he had gained from years of wrestling with Katara and hunting alone. He hoped for someone with soft curves, and hair that he could spend hours braiding different beads and shells into… 

He had a lot of hope, and not a lot of experience. 

Sure, Sokka had spent years imagining just how he would woo the perfect mate, awestruck by the tales he had heard from the elders around him, but he really hadn’t had any practice on how he would do so. 

Beyond meeting the princess of their sister tribe and what was their disaster of what couldn’t even be called a courtship, he had only known so many others his age. Sure he had traveled across the ocean, dragged mainly by Aang and Katara in their endless attempts to make peace between everyone they came across as they searched for a teacher for his sisters freaky-magic-skills. 

He really had no clue how to go about this. 

He had spent enough time laying out on the blazing sand that he only noticed how dry he was by the sheer tightness in his skin, and a foreign feeling deep in his bones. 

It hurt.

His father had warned him of it being uncomfortable sure, but this was just painful as he writhes in the sand, sharp fingers digging into the sand under his fingers in an attempt to keep quiet as the pain overtook his body. He would be silent because he didn’t know if the area was as safe as it seemed, and because he was not weak. 

He was strong enough to handle this, even as his tail suddenly felt like it was being torn apart.

Technically, he thought through the pain, that was what was happening. 

He was going to have legs. Two limbs that he had never had before, and he was going to learn how to walk, which was so exciting if he could think past the pain. He was going to be able to move past the shoreline, see what was in those caves- Maybe even find some kind of new food to try-

Distraction only worked so well until the world went black around him as he let out a guttural scream. 

When Sokka opened his eyes, he wasn’t expecting it to be to the sight of someone running down the beach. 

He barely had time to take inventory of himself as he suddenly sat up, sand flying as his hand moved down to grasp at new, soft skin on his legs. He had fucking legs. They were soft, but firm, and he felt like if he squeezed them hard enough, they would pop- He stopped obviously, but then there was even more of this new anatomy, things that were exposed when they were definitely not supposed to be.

He didn’t get a chance to explore this, obviously, as he turned to stare at the person running towards him. Briefly, he wondered how they did that. Even more briefly, he noticed that this person had some insanely long hair. They had long, dark hair, and there was something trailing behind him that Sokka couldn’t see quite right, his eyes just slightly bleary. It was hard to adjust to the bright light of the day, but he really had no clue just how long he had been out for. 

He hoped it had been an hour, at most, but the position of the sun didn’t make sense for that. 

The body was closer now, and Sokka squeezed his eyes shut, because… He had to be seeing things. That was the only option, right? Because this person didn’t look like how he had heard humans described. Nothing like the scaleless creatures who walked on these legs, and couldn’t breathe underwater. 

No, because this creature had a tail. Not just a tail as a matter of fact, but two large wings that he could see were just too tall to hide completely. 

What?

He had heard his grandmother tell stories about the creatures with wings. They were dangerous, large creatures that could spill flames from their breath and take up the entire sky. 

This… This didn’t live up to the legend, he could definitely say that much. 

Especially when he got closer. It was easy to tell it was a he- Maybe? How did the flame-makers differentiate? Was he being an ass? Maybe. It’s another creature, just call it the name from the legends, make this easy- What was the name?

“Are you oka- Why are you naked!” 

As it turns out, the flame-maker is rude. Who yells at someone who was just passed out on the beach? 

“Why am I what?”

Apparently he was supposed to wear cloth while he was on the surface. It was wildly uncomfortable, the rough material touching skin that hadn’t even existed mere days ago. The flame-maker had refused to actually talk to him until he put them on however. 

Sokka guessed he did him a favor, going off to wherever his home was and finding something for him to wear but at the moment, he just needed a hand on figuring out this walking thing. He couldn’t imagine these two stick-legs supporting his whole body, and how was he even supposed to balance on them? It sounded weird, but he had managed it, so… 

While he had run off to go and find him ‘clothing’, Sokka had finally been able to take a real inventory of himself. He didn’t know how much he changed, or what he would even look like. Hands reaching up to his neck had shown him that he no longer had gills. That made him uncomfortable, and if he spent too long on it his breathing began to get worse. A quick swipe of his tongue over his teeth at least showed that they were normal, the sharp points reassuring. His hands were different though. Fingers that were no longer connected, all the webbing that held them together his entire life was gone. He could have spent a whole day just stretching out his hands, feeling them stretch as wide as they could before it hurt. 

He didn’t have that much time before the man got back though, so he took a few precious to admire the way he could wiggle his toes. It was familiar, the same feeling as he’d had when he would adjust his fins, the muscles feeling incredibly similar but just the slightest bit different.

He missed his tail, but he could get used to this.

A dull thud on the ground behind him had Sokka turning around, and it turns out he had been right. Those were wings on its back. There was also red staining across those cheeks, but Sokka would reflect on that soon enough. 

“Here. Please, put on pants.” ‘Pants’ were being held out to him, the slitted pupils didn’t look away from the space just beyond his head. Pants were… What? 

He understood that this fabric was meant to go on his body. That made sense, he guessed. It wasn’t common back home, but sometimes, when there were outsiders around, the women would cover themselves, or they would wear armor for protection on occasion but…

This fabric didn’t look like it would fit properly. Where was his head supposed to go? Or his arms? There were two tubes, but did the maker forget to add the last hole? That was fair, he himself had forgotten to put the finishing details on a lot of projects before claiming they were done, only to have to go back and tweak it. 

A small shrug and he was raising his arms, putting thick arms through the tubes. At least, he got that far before he heard the other creature snort, and immediately Sokka was dropping the material. 

“What’s so funny?” His voice certainly sounded weird out of the water. Weird. 

“Nothing you just-” It certainly didn’t sound like nothing was funny. “That isn’t where they go. Legs.” 

Oh yeah. Legs. He had those. 

“Why would you cover them?” It was a strong muscle, if what he was feeling in his own rang true. These things seemed like it would just make things more difficult. “Don’t they make it hard to walk?”

“We cover them for decency.” The red cheeks were back. “I mean- It isn’t the legs we want to cover.”

His voice made it seem like he was trying to say more without actually saying it. That wouldn’t work right now, because Sokka had no clue what he was talking about. 

“Then what are we covering?”

Zuko’s eyes flickered down for a moment, the flush spreading down his neck, and Sokka’s eyes followed- 

“My dick!”

Needless to say, Sokka put the pants on. 

Did he hate them? Oh yes, yes he did. They were quite possibly the worst thing he could think of, and he wasn’t entirely sure that the dragon wasn’t tricking him. 

Their introductions had been… Interesting. Apparently this was a first for the both of them, and Zuko- What a nice name? Sokka liked it- hadn’t known that the mer could form legs, but Sokka hadn’t figured that the fearsome dragons from the maid tales would be able to shrink down to even smaller than his natural form. 

It was a mutual shock, but Zuko was kind. He was apprehensive, and had hesitated strongly before he reached out to help Sokka stand. It hadn’t occurred to Sokka that he should probably warn Zuko about his lack of walking skills, but the dragon figured it out when Sokka fell straight back into the sand after a single failed step. 

The sand tasted terrible, by the way. It was just like all the times Katara had dumped clumps of it in his mouth when he snored, except somehow worse. Crumble, gross, and dry. 

Everything was worse dry. 

Yet… maybe the feeling of the palms against his forearms wasn’t the worst thing in the world. He wasn’t figuring this out on his own, like he knew his fathers had. He had someone who knew how to walk. 

Said someone was also gorgeous, up close. 

He didn’t think that he would ever compare Yue’s beauty to another being, but Zuko drew his eye easily. He’d spent years comparing the mermaids beauty to that of the moon, to the Goddess who gave them the push and pull that sustained their life. Zuko was the exact opposite of her in every way, but they both carried the same ethereal energy under their skin. 

If Yue was the moon, then Zuko is the sun. 

Zuko, with light skin that was covered in the same freckles that dotted Sokka’s own skin, was glowing in the light, but there were none of the burns that he had seen Aang come back to the village with. The pale expanse was free, save for the scars that seemed to marr the skin. 

Long dark hair looked like it had been cut in the dark, messy strands framing the angular face. There was a lot to think about when their eyes met-

“Can you at least pretend to focus?” A nice voice too. Annoyed, but nice. He was blushing too. “I mean, if you don’t want my help, just say so.” 

A smile, and a tighter grip on the man was all he could do, as he braced himself for yet another mouthful of sand. “You just- You make this look so easy.”

“You just can’t let your knee fall. It has to hold you up, not just bend.”

“Like an arm?”

“Exactly.” 

This was the beginning of something great.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr @crippledgay and remember to comment and leave kudos if you like it and think i should continue!


End file.
